Battery life is one of the most important aspects of a phone. There’s no point in having a boatload of features if the phone’s dead. Because of this, smartphone manufacturers try to make it so that their phones can last you the day. They would either squeeze bigger batteries into their phones, use more power-efficient chips, implement battery optimizations into the software, or some combination of the three. If you’re picking up a Motorola Edge+ and you want to extend the battery life, here’s a how-to guide to show you. As always, your mileage will vary based on your usage.
Enable adaptive brightness
The display is often what uses the most battery power on your phone. Having your phone’s display cranked to 100% brightness 100% of the time will definitely drain your battery faster than necessary. For this issue, you can keep your phone at a lower brightness overall or you can have the system do it for you. The Motorola Edge+ has a mode called Adaptive Brightness. What this mode will do is use the front camera to get an idea of how bright your environment is. Then, it will adjust the brightness accordingly. So, if you’re out in the sunlight, it will most likely be at full brightness. However, if you go into a darker environment like a dim room, your phone will crank the brightness down to a more reasonable level. There are two ways to enable this. You can go to your settings and find the Battery section and tap on adaptive brightness. The other way is by tapping and holding the Battery Saver option in the quick settings.
Use the dark theme
Continuing with the display conversation, there’s another way you can darken the screen, but this way is a bit more aesthetically pleasing: dark theme. The dark theme will darken most elements of your interface. White backgrounds become dark gray, and that uses less power overall.
What’s neat is that the Dark theme also affects different apps. Apps like Slack, Asana, YouTube, Chrome and many more will have the dark theme applied. If you want to apply the theme, it should be in your quick setting in your notification shade. Also, you can go to your settings and find the Display section. From there, you’ll be able to toggle the dark theme.
Restrict app background usage
This next step is a little tedious, but it’s worth the while. Apps aren’t only active while we’re using them. Some apps continue to run in the background even after you close them. This is necessary for some apps to perform their core tasks. The unfortunate thing is that this comes at the cost of precious battery power. However, you can pick and choose which apps are allowed to operate in the background. You can do this by going to the Battery section in your settings and tapping on the Battery usage option. There, you’ll get a report on your current battery usage. Under the chart up top, you’ll see a list of apps and system functions. These are what’s been using up the most battery on your phone. The report will tell you how long you’ve used the app for and how much of the battery it’s been using.
Tapping on an app will bring to that app’s battery settings. There, you’ll see three options for background usage. The unrestricted option will let the app carry on in the background without any filter. That will use more battery power, but the app will work completely as intended. The second option is called “Optimized”. With that one selected, the system will automatically handle the background processes based on your usage. If you use an app more, the system might let that app operate in the background more. The final option is called “Restricted”. If you’re really looking to cut down on battery usage, then you’ll want to have this one selected. This one will stop the app from running in the background. Just know that some apps really need to operate in the background to perform their core duties.
Lower the refresh rate
Back to the display, your fancy phone comes with a fancy display. It’s a 6.7-inch display with a refresh rate of 144Hz. This means that the screen is refreshing 2.4 times more per second than a typical 60Hz phone. Having that enabled all the time will take a toll on the battery power.
There are a few options when it comes to adjusting the refresh rate. Go to the display settings and find the display refresh rate option. Tapping on it will bring you to the three refresh rate options. The auto mode will automatically adjust the refresh rate based on what you’re doing. It will lower it while you’re looking at a still image or not doing much at all. The other option will knock it down to just 60Hz. The display won’t be as smooth, but you’ll be able to save the most battery power that way.
Enable Battery Saver mode
You could go and employ these aforementioned methods individually, but you might want a method that does all of them for you. If you go to your battery settings, you’ll see an option called Battery Saver. When you activate this mode, your phone will do a combination of the previously mentioned steps. Your screen will darken, background activities will be blocked, your refresh rate will be cut, and the dark mode will be applied.
Turn off Peek Display
The Motorola Edge+ comes with a feature called Peek Display. When the phone’s screen is off, lifting the phone or tapping the screen will cause the screen to light up slightly with information like the time, date, notifications, and what media is playing. It’s a really useful feature to have if you want at-a-glance information. However, the feature could come at the cost of battery life because it’s so easy to trigger. It can be triggered by any slight movement. This means that if you have it on a desk, on a chair, or on your bed, it runs the risk of turning on every couple of seconds. Go to your display settings and find the Peek Display section. There, you can tap the switch up top to toggle the feature off.
Adjust Screen timeout time
Another way of conserving battery power can really be applied to any phone. There are going to be those times when you accidentally leave your phone sitting on a table with the screen on. Depending on the screen timeout setting, your phone could be sitting there for a while with the screen on and no one to look at it.
Go to your display settings and find the Screen timeout section. If you have a habit of leaving your phone around with the screen on, you might want to set it to 1 minute or 30 seconds.
